[Bananafish] Nine Stories

[Yocum, Daniel R Civ 21 CES/CEOE]

"--Teddy had his epiphany already;" the orange peels?
Is  " a statement of faith of sorts" the same as hope?  Those in despair
are surely not without faith but certainly devoid of hope.  And
epiphanies can exist quite apart from hope.  Was Teddy's hope the hope
of another spin on the carousel?  To what ends?  Enlightenment?  Teddy's
path to enlightenment is paved with all those silly apple eaters to
soften his footfalls.  On Teddy's second spin how can he avoid trampling
the apple-eaters (clearly the behavior of one who has tasted an apple)
short of rejecting awareness of them reducing them to the out-of-sight
orange peels.  They become mere phenomena to tickle his third eye and
are void in-and-of-themselves.  Is it this null state, Jim, that he
strives for with hope? The reduction of the fat lady to a fancy devoid
of substance, a platitude of self flattery?

Daniel


...and I can see Teddy being a statement of faith of sorts.

DDS, Esme, and Teddy are epiphanic stories--Teddy had his epiphany
already; the reader has his/her epiphany on Teddy's death.


Jim R